


A Bridge Too Far

by fredbassett



Series: Stephen/Ryan pre-series [1]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 13:05:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1267564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan's life has turned to rat-shit and he's at the end of his tether.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bridge Too Far

**Author's Note:**

> Warning - contains suicidal thoughts.

The brown water of the River Wye swirled under the bridge, parting around the pillars and rushing on its way. Three days of heavy rain had raised the usual level considerably and the high winds that had scoured the area in the past 24 hours had brought down numerous trees, some of which were now lodged up against the bridge by the churning water. Debris was building up rapidly around the pillars making it look like a family of over-sized beavers had decided to move in and make themselves at home.

As the rain started to fall again from a sky heavy with grey cloud, Ryan pulled an envelope out his pocket and stared down at it, before tearing it – and its contents – into small pieces, shredding the paper again and again until only sodden fragments remained. He opened his fingers and watched as the pieces fell towards the river, snatched away by the wind. Some of them ended up plastered against the bridge supports, others hit the water and were instantly whipped out of sight, a couple stuck to Ryan’s fingers and he shook them off, scratching the backs of his fingers against the rough coping stones and drawing blood.

Raindrops expanded the small smears of blood into red rivulets and finally washed his hand clean. He was cold – four hours of mindless tramping through the Herefordshire countryside in the middle of winter was enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey at the best of times – and he was wet. Very wet. And in a couple of minutes he was going to get even wetter.

Looking back over the last five years, Ryan couldn’t actually put his finger on where it had all started to go wrong, but several rat-shit ops hadn’t helped. He’d been away more than he’d been at home and when he had been back there’d been too much barely-suppressed anger to make him good to be around. He hadn’t actually been particularly surprised to come home one day to find that his wife had left him, taking their seven-year-old daughter with her. He’d been more surprised to discover that she’d gone off with a bloke who worked in a merchant bank and probably earned more in a month than he pulled in a year. He couldn’t even work out where she might have met him, which just went to prove how little he now knew about his wife’s life.

The regiment had dealt with the problem in typical fashion and he’d found himself shipped overseas again by the end of the week to take his temper out on the Taliban. As a distraction technique it had proved surprisingly ineffective. But he’d left a lot of bodies in his wake and scared the shit out of most of the luckless fuckers who’d had the misfortune to work with him. His next return home hadn’t been any better. Mandy had moved out and had practically emptied the flat in the process. Not that he’d been that bothered. The army had taught him to travel light, and you didn’t get much lighter than the two chairs and crappy sofa-bed that she’d deigned to leave behind.

A year later he’d still been sleeping on a bed-roll, although he had replaced enough of the stuff in the kitchen to be able to feed himself without resorting to takeaways or the mess every night. When the tenancy had come to an end he’d moved back onto the base and he’d stayed there ever since, apart from when he’d been deployed in some overseas shithole or other. And with even Britain’s famed Special Forces’ capability stretched to breaking point that had been more often than not. If he’d still had a wife at home they’d have conformed perfectly to the stereotypical couple seen so often in the nightclubs of Hereford: suntanned bloke, pale woman.

The next three years hadn’t been much better. Like a fucking idiot he’d tried to make things up with Mandy. But she had wanted nothing more to do with him and after a couple of blistering rows that had resulted in her neighbours calling the police she’d got the lawyers involved, obtained a restraining order against him and started divorce proceedings. Losing contact with his daughter had hit him hard. Mandy he could live without, but his daughter meant the world to him.

He still sent cards and presents, but he knew bloody well that her mother would almost certainly have stuffed the lot straight in the bin.

After the divorce had come through, together with a sole custody order in favour of Mandy, he’d reached the stage of not really caring what happened to him and that had made him dangerous to be around. He still got the jobs done, but there were fewer and fewer guys who wanted to work with him. He’d known perfectly well he was riding for a fall, but that hadn’t been enough to stop him. The last op had been a cluster-fuck from start to finish and even Ryan’s well-known suicidal disregard for his own safety hadn’t been able to salvage it.

He’d received a commendation for bravery followed by the biggest bollocking of his life from his CO almost as soon as he’d got off the transport plane. There was no room in the regiment for anyone with a death-wish, which had been made perfectly clear on more than one occasion, but he’d ignored it and just carried on pushing his luck – and everyone else’s, but Ryan knew bloody well there was no way he could carry on like that. He was going to be RTUd, he was certain of it.

Returned to unit.

Words that he’d hoped never to hear. Made worse by the fact that he only had himself to blame.

He’d managed to fuck up everything that mattered in his life. The river had just carried away the last fragments of his marriage – his wedding photos and his decree absolute – and it could bloody well do the same for him, for all he cared, just as soon as the bloke walking across the bridge had buggered off. At least if he let the water do his dirty work for him some other poor fucker wouldn’t have to clean up the mess left behind if he took the more traditional way out. He was a strong swimmer, but the force of the water rushing under the old bridge meant that he wouldn’t stand a chance, and that was exactly what he wanted. No way back.

There was something almost hypnotic about the steady flow of the water, boiling up where it met the stone pillars, parting and then reforming on the other side of the bridge, out of sight. Ryan felt drawn to the swirling river and he knew he’d have no regrets…

“Not a good idea, mate.” The words broke into his thoughts and Ryan felt a hand on his shoulder.

He drew in a long, slow breath and fought against the urge to spin around and plant his fist in the face of the man who had dared to touch him.

“I wouldn’t do that either, if I were you.” The bloke sounded amused but he did at least have the sense to take his hand off Ryan’s shoulder and step to one side, out of reach of the elbow that had been about to jab him in the solar plexus as a precursor to a fist in the face.

Ryan turned around slowly to see who the hell had decided to interfere with his plans.

“How about I buy you a drink instead?”

The bloke who’d asked the question had short hair and an equally short beard. Something about the way he held himself screamed military, but Ryan knew he wasn’t from Credenhill, or even Herefordshire. He’d gone undercover often enough in Northern Ireland to recognise an Enniskillen accent when he heard it.

“How about you just fuck off?”

A shake of the head was all the answer he got. The man leaned on the wall next to him, but the posture was only superficially casual. Ryan knew the bloke was ready for trouble and would give as good as he got in a scrap. But only an old woman walking a small and very wet poodle towards them stopped him from decking the guy. The dog loitered by every lamppost and its owner seemed in no hurry, despite the foul weather.

Ryan cast his eyes up and down the span of the bridge. In the space of a few heartbeats, a woman pushing a pram had appeared, along with two teenage boys, both swigging from what looked like cans of extra-strong lager. The sixth sense for danger that had kept Ryan alive for far longer than he had any right started to prickle and he shot the man at his side a quick glance.

“Yeah, I’m on it,” the bloke said quietly. “You take the one in the grey hoodie. The other one’s mine.”

The trouble erupted without warning. One of the boys pushed the old woman hard against the wall of the bridge and stuck his hand into her pocket as the other one snatched at the younger woman’s handbag, dangling from the handles of the pram.

Ryan and the other man were across the road before the boys had the chance to get away with their ill-gotten gains. His companion was a stride in front of him as he kicked hard at his opponent’s legs, taking him to the ground, a can of lager spinning away in a spray of froth. Ryan landed a hard jab in the other boy’s stomach, doubling him over and making him drop the bag he’d just grabbed.

The scuffle was over in a matter of seconds, ending with both teenagers gasping on the ground. Ryan reached into his pocket and brought put a long cable tie. Ignoring the yells from both boys, he grabbed their wrists and secured them together. He could see a man at one end of the bridge with a mobile phone out, probably calling the police. One of the boys spat at him, so Ryan gave him another jab in the stomach and told him to mind his manners.

By the time he’d ascertained that neither of the women had been hurt and had pacified the extremely irate poodle, two coppers had arrived. The boys were unceremoniously bundled into the back of the police car and a few minutes later another car had arrived.

Ryan looked around, hoping that he could simply slide quietly away, but it looked like the bloke from Enniskillen had beaten him to it and done a runner first. Between the effusive thanks from the two women, and the polite but firm insistence from the officers on a statement from him, Ryan ended up agreeing to what they wanted. With seemed like half of Hereford enjoying a free show despite the rain, his chances of going through with his original plans had clearly gone up in smoke.

“Yeah, whatever,” he muttered when he was asked if he’d mind going to the police station along with a PCSO who had just turned up to join the circus.

* * * * *

By the time he’d waited to be seen, drunk several mugs of brown sludge masquerading as coffee and given a statement to one of the coppers, it was getting on for lunchtime. He walked down the steps of the police station and, out of habit, turned to walk back to the base. The town was too crowded now, despite the weather, for his earlier plans to come to fruition.

“How about that drink?”

Ryan turned and stared into the expressionless face of the man from Enniskillen. He couldn’t really blame the bloke for fucking off fast when the cops had arrived. He would have done the same himself given half a chance.

“Yeah, I reckon you owe me one.” He fell in step alongside to the bloke and they made their way to a back street pub that was unlikely to be frequented by anyone Ryan knew. They both ordered pints of bitter and, true to his word, the other guy paid.

Ryan downed the pint without wasting any time on conversation and shoved a tenner across the bar for a refill. The bloke jerked his head in the direction of a table against the wall that would give them a good view of the rest of the pub, branding them both as military just as much as their haircuts did, and Ryan nodded his agreement.

“Are you still gonna keep a date with the river?” the bloke asked as they each started their third pint.

“None of your fucking business,” Ryan said, but he knew as soon as the words left his mouth that he wasn’t. The moment had past, blown away in a sudden flare of adrenaline. Oh yeah, sure, after he’d had his arse handed to him on a plate by his CO and been given the news that his RTU had been confirmed he’d no doubt feel different, but tomorrow was another day, and he still had the option of filling his face with lead back in his crummy room on the base if that was what he really wanted.

After another two rounds, Ryan held his hands out, palms up. “I’m out of dosh. Thanks for the help this morning.”

The bloke’s lips quirked into a half-smile. “Like you needed my help with two idiot kids.”

If he knew what Ryan was really thanking him for, he gave no sign of it. The man held his hand out and Ryan took it.

“I owe you a drink,” he said. “My name’s Ryan. If I’m around you’ll usually find me in the Black Swan.”

A flicker of something that might have been surprise played across the other man’s face. Ryan was about to ask where the bloke knew his name from when his phone rang.

He dragged it out of his pocket and checked the caller display. It was his CO. Ryan hesitated a moment and then pressed the screen to accept the call. “Boss…”

“Get your fat arse back to base.” The major was as abrupt as ever. “Something’s come up that’s right up your rat-infested alley.”

“A job?” Ryan silently cursed the stupidity of his own question, but the call wasn’t exactly turning out the way he’d expected.

“Of course it’s a fucking job, you dozy git, and it’s off the wall, even by our standards, so it’ll suit you right down to the fucking ground. I’ll brief you when you get back.” The call ended as abruptly as it had begun.

Ryan could feel the familiar build up of anticipate as adrenaline started to work its magic on it. If a job had come up, it mean he wasn’t being busted back to his former regiment. It meant he still had a chance…

The shutters had come back down on the other man’s face, the brief flash of recognition neatly packed away out of sight.

“I’ll see you around, mate.” He slipped his phone back into his pocket. There was a taxi rank around the corner and he could borrow a tenner off the guard on the gate…

His mind already turning over the possibilities, Ryan nodded to the bloke and walked off. As he reached the street corner, Ryan half-turned, realising he didn’t even know the man’s name, but he’d already rounded the corner and was out of sight.

A job had come up. That was all that mattered now.


End file.
